Apurvi takes silver at ISSF World Cup Finals (Correcting sixth para)

Munich, Sep 5 (IANS) Commonwealth Games champion Apurvi Chandela clinched a silver in the women’s 10 metre Air Rifle event at the ISSF World Cup Final (Rifle/Pistol) here on Saturday.

Apurvi managed a score of 416.4 in the preliminary rounds to qualify for the final in the fourth position.

She displayed excellent form in the final, producing a total of 206.9 to take the silver.

Elaheh Ahmadi of Iran won the gold with a score of 207.5 while Andrea Arsovic of Serbia took home the bronze medal in a shoot-off.

This is a special medal for Apurvi as only shooters with the top nine scores over the four World Cups held earlier in the year, qualified for the Munich World Cup Final.

Three other Indian shooters — Gagan Narang (Men’s 50m Rifle Prone), Gurpreet Singh (Men’s 25m Rapid Fire Pistol) and Jitu Rai (Men’s 10m Air Pistol) — had also qualified for this tournament and have made it to the final rounds of their respective events.

Apurvi has been in good form in recent months. She secured a quota place for India at the 2016 Olympics to be held in Rio de Janeiro after taking bronze in the 10m Air Rifle at the ISSF World Cup in Changwon, South Korea in April.

Apurvi’s father Kuldeep Chandela asserted that the shooter is focussed on achieving Olympic glory in Rio next year.

“The family is delighted at this result, especially because it was a premiere competition between the year’s top shooters in the event. We are indebted to the coach Lapidius, who has always shown great confidence in Apurvi’s abilities throughout and worked very hard with her,” Kuldeep said in a statement.

“Her record suggests that she is the best finalist among all Indian shooters as every time she makes the final rounds, she comes back with a medal of some colour. This medal will surely boost her confidence even more towards the aim of winning an Olympic medal, hopefully gold,” he added.